Terminally Ill Lee Kerslake Gets His Ozzy Platinum Discs

Former Ozzy Osbourne drummer Lee Kerslake has received the platinum discs he’d asked his former bandmate for in a “bucket list” request, after he'd confirmed he only had months to live.

Kerslake appeared on Osbourne’s first two solo albums, Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, but legal disputes over credits and rights meant he didn’t received the sales awards that are normally given to those involved in an album's success.

Last month he revealed he’d written to Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, “asking them to kindly send me platinum album certifications… to hang on my wall before I die.” He added: “I hope they will come to terms with it and say yes. I went belly-up bankrupt when I lost the case… But a platinum certification on my wall for these albums would be fantastic. … It would say I helped create those albums.”

Following his comments, Osbourne published a picture of Kerslake sitting with the awards, along with a personal letter, and said: “I’m so glad that Lee Kerslake is enjoying his Blizzard and Diary platinum albums. I hope you feel better. Love, Ozzy.”

The drummer discussed his cancer diagnosis in 2015, saying that treatment had been going well. “I have had numerous tests and have been told by my specialists that I will be around for a good while yet — meaning years," he reported. In December he explained: “I now have bone cancer, which is a nasty one, so the doctor gave me about eight months to live. ... But I’ve been fighting all the way – five years ago they gave me four years to live, and so that gives you an idea. … I’m fighting it and there’s no telling what can happen … All this time I have had this terminal cancer, but I have defied it because the music kept me fighting.”